Parliament remain-of the venerable Primate of Ireland, as declared in his speech on the 22d of January last, and of Dr. Duigenan, as ftated in his celebrated answer to Mr. Grattan-that Catholic emancipation, as it is af fectedly called, might, in case of the legislative incorporation of Ireland with this country, be acceded to without danger. The words of Dr. Duigenan are remarkable. They ftruck me much on the firft appearance of his work, before this measure of Union had been fo generally thought of as it has been fince; and I then pointed them out to the attention of many of my friends. I believe they have already been referred to in fome former debates; but as the paffage is fhort, I will take the liberty of reading it.

If we were one people with the British nation, the preponderance of the Proteftant body of the whole empire * would be fo great, that all rivalship and jealoufies be'tween Proteftants and Romanifts would cease for ever; ' and it would not be neceffary, for the fafety of the em'pire at large, to curb the Romanists by any exclufive laws whatsoever a,'

If the Catholics fhould not be admitted into the United Parliament, ftill they will not then have to complain that they are excluded by a great majority of the nation; nor will they be any longer exposed to that sense of a mortifying and galling inferiority, which they fay it is the habit, which I fear it is in the nature, of their local Legiflature to excite, acted upon and stirred up to perpetual exertions of fevere authority, by the jealoufy and apprehenfions to which the ftruggles of the Catholics, at their very doors in a manner and under their immediate eye, continually give rife.

* Duigenan's Answer to Grattan, p. 79.

We have seen the invalidity of the reafons by which fome of the supposed disadvantages to Ireland likely to arife from the affembling of the common Legislature out of that island and at the metropolis of the empire, have been attempted to be proved. Another of thofe fuppofed difadvantages remains to be noticed. It is faid the prefent ftate of things keeps the purfe of the Irish nation in the honeft hands of an Irish Parliament; and that if a number inferior to those chofen by Great Britain fhall be sent from Ire, land to an United Legislature, they will carry this purfe over, and, laying it at the Minifter's feet, deliver it up to his full power and uncontrouled difcretiona. The strict economy of the Irish Parliament, and its prudent refiltance to the calls of the Executive Government for pecuniary fupplies, however juft its claim to that praife, will not, I believe, be admitted by the majority of those who have oppofed a Union, either on this or the other fide of the water, But has any body ever fuppofed that York, Briftol and Liverpool, or Limerick, Cork and Waterford, have run a greater risk than Westminster and Dublin, in confiding the power of their purfe to Parliaments affembled in thofe laft-mentioned cities? Suppofe a partner in a mercantile house established in Cork to come to England on account of the partnership, and with full power to act for it; if such a person, during his absence in this country, fhould make a draft or accept a bill for the general behalf of the concern, would there be more dan❤ ger of injury to the house from an improvident exercise of his power in that refpect in fuch cafe, than if he had been deputed with equal authority to fome other city in Ireland, to Derry or Belfaft, and had exercised it there?

But when fuch topics as these are urged, do not Gentle

• Mr. Fofter's Speech, p. 38, 59.

men

ment forget that, according to the Resolutions a proposed to be carried up to the Throne with this joint addrefs, the rate of taxation between the two kingdoms is to be regulated by fixed rules and principles, to be agreed upon previous to the Union? The purse of Ireland therefore will, in a peculiar degree, have for its guardians not only the members Ireland fhall elect, but those also chofen by Great Britain, as they can never concur in taxing that country without impofing a burden on this, in a proportion which Ireland as well as this country, and not in conjunction with it, but while ftill in its diftinct and separate ftate, fhall have fanctioned; and hence we have no occafion, here, to recur to the argument I fome time fince fubmitted to the Houfe in order to fhew the little ground there is to apprehend, that the general interefts of Ireland will be overlooked or facrificed by a United Legislature. In this material inftance of taxation, the very selfishness of Great Britain herself will protect (fince there are still thofe who will delight in viewing their interefts as different) the feparate purse of Ireland.

It seems to be chiefly for the purpose of meeting this argument that the alarms are raised to which I referred at the outfet; left the articles of Union fhould be infringed to the detriment of Ireland, whenever an infraction of them may be thought beneficial to Great Britain. To give colour to these apprehenfions, we are told of the difavowal of the compact of 1782. This, it is faid, must create a fufpicion that any compact made in 1799 may be treated as lightly. I have fhewn that no compact of the fort infifted on can have been intended in 1782; that whatever was then held out on the part of this country has been strictly adhered to; that the claim of the British a Vide 7th Resolution.

Mr. Fofter's Speech, p. 99.

Parliament

Parliament to legislate for Ireland has never been renewed, as I am fatisfied it never will; but that when there is a compact between two diftinct countries, if either of them' fhall break its part of it, the other may be able to resume its former fituation, whereas in the cafe of an incorporating Union that is impoffible; and that therefore fuch a compact can only be broken by lawlefs and revolutionary violence: which if it were attempted with success after a Union, would diffolve the whole political machine, and is no more to be dreaded than any other imaginable and poffible fubverfion of the state.

What has been in fact the cafe as to the Scotch Union? No candid man who is verfed in the history of his country fince that memorable transaction will deny that its spirit, in all its clear and important parts, in all its fun⚫damental and effential conditions, has been adhered to ever fince with fcrupulous and facred inviolability. The contrary, indeed, has been often, and was early attempted to be proved by the violence of faction and to ferve the purposes of the day, though at the risk of no matter what public mifchief and confufion. Such, among others, was the attempt in 1713, when, parties running high, the reluctance of the Scotch to fubmit to a general malttax was laid hold of, and their reprefentatives perfuaded, though upon a doubtful conftruction of one of the fecondary clauses of the treaty, and one whofe effect at best was only to be of a temporary and short duration, to raise a cry that thofe articles of the Union which were in favour of Scotland had been infringed; and even to bring forward a motion in Parliament for its formal diffolution; a motion which those who had encouraged it were far, I believe, from wishing to fucceed, having done fo merely

• Article 25.

bift June 1713. Lords' Debates, vol. ii. p. 394. Continuation of Rapin, vol. xviii. p. 83.

with the hope that it would contribute to the overthrow of an administration to which they expected to fucceed.

In hunting for objections on the present occafion, the circumstances of that occurrence have been eagerly looked into, and turned and twisted in a great variety of ways. But as one of the last, and certainly not the least of those who have conceived it to be their duty publicly to oppofe the propofal of a Union between Ireland and Great Britain, scarcely appears to have thought they could be employed to any useful purpose on his fide of the question, I do not deem it neceffary for me to detain the House by any particular obfervations upon them.

I do not exactly underftand, after the candid declaration, that the extenfion of the late income-tax is neither a breach of any of the articles of the Scotch Union, nor even fufpected to have been meant as an evafion of it, why it is mentioned as affording an argument to perfuade Ireland not to agree to a fimilar Union. 'Time and cir'cumftances,' it is faid, have fet afide the great beneficial

difference in taxation which induced Scotland to confent. 'to a Uniona.' And we are told, that, instead of tax" ing the land, the income arifing out of the land is taxed, and that the effect is therefore the fame to the Scotchman as if the articles of Union were broken.' Sir, I fhould like to ask whether when the tea, the coffee, the wine, the fugar, &c. a Scotchman purchases with the income arifing from his land is taxed at the fame rate as thofe articles are in England, it might not as well be argued that this alters the fettled proportion of land-tax, and amounts to a virtual breach of the articles of Union?

Mr. Fofter's Speech, p. 96.

Ibid.

But